Before Gillibrand, 42, began her first day of work in her new job, she stopped first at the office of her old one in the Cannon House office building. Hher husband, Jonathan, and more than a dozen friends and relatives awaited her there, including her 8-month- and 5-year-old sons, Henry and Theodore.

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With a beaming smile and declaring she felt "great!" the 99th member of the 111th Senate scooped up her youngest child to chat with the Daily News and CNN before going in for a warm welcome in her old digs, with at least half a dozen nieces and nephews scampering around.

"I really can't wait to start representing (New Yorkers), to meet with them in every community of the state and really be a voice for their priorities and their values," Gillibrand said, with young Henry in her arms.

From there, the upstate, gun-defending Democrat whom Gov. Paterson tapped Friday to replace Hillary Clinton marched over to the Senate side of Capitol Hill for her moment with the new Vice President, who swore her in on a Senate Bible.

"I'm happy. It's an honor. I feel extremely grateful for the opportunity to serve my state," Gillibrand said later. "It's certainly something I never could have imagined and it's extremely exciting."

Minutes after the official swearing-in, her entire family got to meet Biden when the freshly minted senator reenacted the oath, smiling broadly for the cameras in the historic old Senate chamber.

"For me, of all the things that happened in my life, this is the most important thing, being sworn in the United States Senate. I mean it sincerely," Biden told Gillibrand after giving the Gillibrand's older son and nieces and nephews an impromptu civics lesson.

The new statewide official then headed for her first Senate lunch, escorted by her senior colleague, Chuck Schumer.

But not before stopping to chat with reporters, and sounding very much like she'd be a senator more in Schumer's mold than in Hillary Clinton's -- talkative rather than guarded.

Asked about her stands, Gillibrand smiled and said "Which ones you want to talk about?"